Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas, Austin

In November 2008, LLILAS celebrated the arrival of a special work of art on campus. The Universidad Veracruzana, one of Mexico’s most prominent universities, presented the institute with a colossal Olmec head, a replica of the iconic sculpture known as San Lorenzo Monument 1, or El Rey.

The original, now housed in the Museo de Antropología in Xalapa, Veracruz, is considered a signature piece of pre-Columbian Olmec culture and a world-class art object that represents New World civilization as emblematically as the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacán or the ruins of Machu Picchu. One of seventeen colossal heads still in existence, San Lorenzo Monument 1 was found by noted archaeologist Matthew Stirling in the 1940s. His discoveries, and those of other archaeologists in Mexico during this time, unearthed for the world the culture of the Olmec, an ancient civilization that flourished in southern Mexico 1500-400 BCE and significantly influenced later cultures such as the Maya and Aztec.

The replica that now sits at the entry to LLILAS and the Benson Latin American Collection is made of solid stone and weighs 36,000 pounds. It was sculpted by Ignacio Pérez Solano, a Xalapa-based artist, who has spent his career exploring the history of the Gulf Coast and Mesoamerica. Pérez Solano meticulously reproduced San Lorenzo Monument 1 inch by inch, recreating the powerful lines and imposing features of the original work.

Pérez Solano began creating replicas of Olmec heads under the initiative of Miguel Alemán Velasco, who as governor of Veracruz from 1998 to 2004 endeavored to make Olmec culture better known beyond the borders of Mexico. Reproductions of other colossal heads can be found at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and the Field Museum in Chicago, among other locations. Miguel Alemán Velasco was present for the dedication ceremony at LLILAS on November 19, 2008, which also featured remarks by UT President William Powers and his counterpart, Raul Arias Lovillo of the Universidad Veracruzana. Fidel Herrera Beltrán, current Governor of Veracruz, also spoke, as did Olmec scholars from the U.S. and Mexico.
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“Borders” — hosted by the Chicago Park District in conjunction with the Grant Park Conservancy and the Icelandic Ministry of Culture, and sponsored by Bloomberg — will remain through spring, the sculptures looming with pupil-less gazes over park visitors. (Each aluminum piece weighs 180 pounds; each iron piece weighs 440 pounds.) Thorarinsdottir, who sometimes “stands and peeks” at passers-by, said she enjoys watching her art evoke different reactions from people.

And that’s the fundamental idea of this exhibition: Viewers make what they will of it. The pieces can be poked, stroked, cuddled — so long as the art stimulates some kind of mental and physical response, Thorarinsdottir said she considers her mission accomplished.

Her artwork, which took two years to complete, was first installed in 2011 at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza near the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Thorarinsdottir said she consciously placed her figures in that socially and politically charged environment, and her choice to install them in Chicago’s Solti Garden was just as careful and deliberate.

Days before “Borders” was installed, she sat on one of the garden’s benches for hours considering how her sculptures would fit into her surroundings. She recalled listening to the languages spoken by people of all sizes and colors, and she knew she had found her gallery space.

“I wanted the installation to relate to people that wherever we come from, whatever our life experiences, we’re all connected in shape and spirit,” she said. “This garden was my first choice, a natural choice.”

The park, situated just south of the Art Institute of Chicago, provides the intimacy of an enclosed room in an area heavy with foot traffic. The lattice of tree trunks forms the walls, brambly branches netting up into a leafy canopy.

“Some sites are too big, but this garden had a nice body. I like that it forms a natural ‘border’ that the viewer can cross and connect,” Thorarinsdottir said.

Thorarinsdottir purposely left her androgynous figures “neutral.” Some may be sitting, a couple kneeling, others standing, but their faces are left enigmatic. Her Icelandic background influenced her philosophy, she said: “In Iceland, it’s an island with lots of space, very few people, tons of organic nature. So everyone in Iceland gives this feeling that what you are, what you do, matters. We are individuals, but we are also all connected, we are all part of humanity.”

For some reason, when I saw the above sculpture installation at LACMA, I didn’t remember that Walter De Maria was part of the NYC underground scene that also evolved into The Velvet Underground…

Walter De Maria, a reclusive American sculptor whose multifaceted achievement and sly Dadaist humor helped give rise to earthworks, Conceptual Art and Minimal art, on an often monumental scale, died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 77 and lived in New York.

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In a career of more than 50 years Mr. De Maria made drawings of all-but-invisible landscapes, gamelike interactive wood sculptures and a record of himself accompanying the sound of crickets on the drums.

Mr. De Maria himself was a sometime percussionist who played in jazz and rock groups in New York in the 1960s, including one that evolved into Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground. Yet as an artist in later years he avoided the limelight, rarely giving interviews or letting himself be photographed.…

In other works Mr. De Maria favored shiny metals and pristine floor-hugging geometric forms that were often repeated in great numbers.

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From 1953 to 1959 he attended the University of California, Berkeley, studying history and painting, the latter under the painter David Park, who was also a musician and had a jazz group in which Mr. De Maria occasionally performed.

During these years Mr. De Maria was part of San Francisco’s developing avant-garde scene, participating in “Happenings” and theatrical performances and turning increasingly to three-dimensional works. His friends included the composer La Monte Young (later to become another Dia beneficiary) and the dancer Simone Forti, whose task-oriented choreography made him interested in interactive sculpture. Mr. De Maria moved to New York in 1960 and immersed himself in the downtown scene. He participated in Happenings with Robert Whitman (who was then married to Ms. Forti) and briefly ran a gallery on Great Jones Street with him, exhibiting Minimalist sculptures made of wood.

The sculptures were often Dadaist in intent. A piece called “Ball Drop” consisted of a tall columnar structure with a small hole at the top and bottom and a small wood ball. The viewer could drop the ball in the top hole and retrieve it from the bottom.

During this time Mr. De Maria performed with jazz musicians, including the trumpeter Don Cherry, and joined a band called the Primitives. It would evolve into the Velvet Underground.